In the past few years, Stage Troupe has, from time to time, sent out feedback forms after shows to assess the feelings of the cast & crew about the process that they just took part in. As your new Vice President of Special Projects, I thought that these feedback forms would also be a great way to gather some information about membership feelings about special events. The BUSTies feedback form is the first, but I anticipate trying to gather feedback after every major special project to continue to improve these events and make sure everyone in Stage Troupe gets the most out of special projects.

Based on the feedback from the BUSTies form, I am going to try to implement the following changes to BUSTies 2018:

More food options

While substantial meals might be, monetarily speaking, not the best idea, I believe we can at least provide more snacks and options to eat throughout the night.

Length of roasts

Next year, a strict time limit will be enforced. In order to accommodate this, the length of roasts will be extended to 7 minutes. This will be a hard time limit, and roasters will be cut off.

I believe that extended the time of roasts by 2 minutes is the best option for combatting overly long roasts. This is because many roasters do not really pay attention to the 5 minute time limit when writing their roasts, so they end up being closer to 10 or 15 minutes. I think that giving an extra two minutes but enforcing a hard time limit will cut down on the total time of BUSTies.

The event management team next year will be in charge of enforcing the time limit, and will be given the power to cut people off.

Content of roasts

The content of roasts next year will be monitored more closely.

In order to help myself and my event management team do this, I will be requiring actual scripts for roasts, and will need to approve all PowerPoints.

Roasters will not have to have every single word that they intend to say written down, but they do need to have the general points and flow of the roast in writing.

We will be saying no to content in roasts that we deem to be too harsh, or too inappropriate. I am not asking roasters to keep things PG, but I would like to avoid overly explicit roasts.

To make sure all roasts are approved, the deadline that roasts are due will be strictly enforced. Roasts cannot be turned in the day before BUSTies except in the case of emergencies, because that is unfair to me as VPSP, and especially unfair to the event managers. I understand that BUSTies occurs at a busy time of the year, but the people planning the event are equally busy and that should be respected. A person signing up to roast someone is a commitment that should be honored out of respect to everyone involved.

If roasters go off script while roasting, they will be cut off by the event managers. Again, this is not saying that roasters have to have every word planned (and we will not be taking line notes), but bringing up topics or stories that were not approved will not be okay. It is best to just include all of the raunchiest material in the original script and have it vetoed but still be allowed to roast, than to turn in a script that gets approved, and try to sneak in more uncomfortable material.

I understand that some people are okay with extremely embarrassing/inappropriate information being shared about them in their roasts. And I am not saying that roasts can’t make people cringe a little bit. But there is a limit. And there are many other people in the room besides the roaster and roastee who might not be as comfortable hearing these things. BUSTies is a night of celebration, and the E-Board does not want anyone to leave feeling uncomfortable.

Roast workshop

To aid roasters, especially first-timers, in writing their roasts, I will be bringing back a roast workshop early in the spring semester.

I believe that by talking to potential roasters and giving examples of good roasts and outlining ahead of time what is not okay will make the creation of roasts easier for everyone.

Ideally, I would like to have this workshop before signups for roasting are officially due so that people who have some interest can see what roasting is about without having to commit first.

In addition to the above recommendations, I would also like to answer a few questions and clear up some additional things related to BUSTies that members expressed concern about:

How nominees are chosen

First, directors are asked to determine which categories they would like their actors to be nominated in. Then, directors choose one actor, one technician, and one member of the producing team to serve on the Nomination Committee. The 3 individuals chosen by each director are the members of the NomCom for that semester.

Next, nominees in each individual category are chosen by the Nomination Committee. If there are 5 or less individuals in a particular category, then all individuals receive a nomination. But when there are more than 5 individuals that could receive nominations in a particular category, the members of the NomCom each cast an anonymous ballot indicating the 5 people that they think should be nominated for a BUSTies.

Only a maximum of five options can be given for any category, other than Best Special Project.

Superlatives

Superlatives are informal and usually chosen, for the most part, by the BUSTies hosts.

Superlatives are intended to be light-hearted, and not receiving a superlative is not any kind of judgement.

The membership has the opportunity to nominate other members for a superlative on their BUSTies voting form each semester. This is not a guarantee that your chosen superlative will make the ceremony, but they are all considered.

I hope that the membership feels like I have heard their concern and am trying to reform BUSTies to make it the best it can be. If anyone has any further questions, comments, or concerns, my inbox, both email (abbyk@bu.edu) and Facebook (Abby Kass), are always open to talk. My role as VPSP is to facilitate the most enjoyable events for the membership that I can.

The rest of the E-Board and I are very appreciative of the interest the members have shown in continuing to improve Troupe and some Troupe traditions. We always welcome feedback about anything.